Senators Mull Past Failures, Possible Solutions on Big Tech

A Senate antitrust subcommittee expressed dismay on March 7 over failed attempts to regulate tech giants, such as Google or Apple by Democrats and Republicans. Legislators and expert witnesses debated the legislation that did not get a majority vote in Congress last year.

“Neither the judiciary nor the executive branch can solve these problems alone—Congress must act,” Ranking member of Senate Judiciary Committee antitrust subcommittee, Sen. Mike Lee (R. Utah), said.

“At the same time, we also have a duty to ensure that the cure isn’t something that turns out to be worse than the disease,” He expressed concerns about federal legislation that might consolidate and strengthen the sector’s bureaucratic control.

The hearing was opened by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic Senator from Minnesota. She spoke of Big Tech’s successes in public relations against Congress’s attempts to regulate this industry.

Klobuchar stated that tech lobbyists have included Klobuchar’s bipartisan Open App Markets Act, which would prevent Apple and Google from forcing developers to use their own payment systems.

This bill advanced through In February 2022, the Senate Judiciary Committee was voted for by 20 Senators with 2 opposing it.

“Probably over $200 million was spent against this bill in states all over the country, with ads that had nothing to do with each other, for red states and blue states,” She said that, and added that she didn’t have exact numbers.

Klobuchar also shared a similar tale on a bipartisan tech bill, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. This was a bill Klobuchar initially cosponsored along with Judiciary colleague Senator Chuck Grassley (R.Iowa).

Despite making it to the Senate floor, neither bill received a vote last Congress—an outcome Klobuchar attributed to Big Tech’s sustained lobbying activities.

The hearing was dominated by Klobuchar’s bills.

“They are in every corner of this town, at every cocktail party, and all over this building,” She told her coworkers.

Also, she called attention to House Republican changes. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who was the top member of this subcommittee’s antitrust committee in the previous Congress is no longer leading the organization. Libertarian engineer Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has taken the helm—a change that Klobuchar seemed to characterize as problematic as Congress confronts the giants of Silicon Valley.

She claimed that she spoke with Buck earlier in day.

“To just close our eyes and do nothing and let another two years go by is a huge mistake,” She said.

Aside from facing opposition from Republicans, potential tech regulators also have had to contend with scrutiny and skepticism from Democrats in California. This is where Silicon Valley and other tech titans are located.

Lee Warns of ‘Addiction Business Model’

Sen. Lee was also frustrated by the Twitter-powered user.

“If it seems like we’ve had this hearing several times before, well, it’s because we have,” He stated.

Lee stated that Big Tech represented a rare challenge in America’s long history of antitrust.

“Never before have we seen just a handful of trillion-dollar corporate bureaucracies exercising such pervasive control over how we stay in touch with friends and loved ones, how we shop to provide for our families, obtain news and other information [and] exercise our First Amendment rights, influence public debate, and even how we turn on our air conditioning and lock or unlock our doors,” He stated.

“Big Tech’s business plans are built on an addiction business model, and our children are uniquely vulnerable,” He concluded.

Lee pointed out the recent coordination between the state and the technology sector to limit access to American information and monitor the citizens.

However, he stated his opposition for bills to empower the Federal Trade Commission. He said that agency had an a “radical agenda” under President Biden.

Lee presented his bipartisan tech bill in May 2022, called the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act.

Senators and Senators debate the Bills

Divergent views were offered by the experts testifying on Congress’s legislation so far.

New York University School of Law professor Daniel Francis criticized Klobuchar’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

He claimed it would presumptively make some common practices illegal, and deter tech companies’ efforts to protect consumers. Its core idea, he warned. “harm to competition,” The bill lacks clarity in its definition.

“It’s gonna drown in complaints the very same agencies that today barely have the resources to cover their antitrust docket,” Francis.

Klobuchar’s bill for app payments, he said, was “a much more promising basis for discussion,” However, he cautioned that the language in the bill regarding third-party apps stores could pose a danger to Americans.

“The whole cybersecurity world, from the NSA [National Security Agency] and FBI to the FTC, tell consumers and users to stay away from third-party app stores,” He stated.

Klobuchar asked Professor Fiona Morton of Yale School of Management for an explanation of some of Francis’ objections to her bill.

“I think the parade of horribles that was listed by Professor Francis really can’t happen if there’s a requirement to find injury to competition,” Morton said.

“The notion that courts will suddenly eliminate quality products because they have to evaluate a harm to competition is, I think, misplaced,” Elle added.

Her argument was that “harm to competition” The bill was successful because of the concept.

“The fact that new words are being used in this legislation is exactly to ensure that we get a new outcome. We can’t use the same terminology and imagine that courts won’t understand it the way they always have. So, to get a different outcome, we have to use a new word, and say, ‘Look, we’re worried about harm to competition,'” Morton said.